Thread regarding SAS Institute layoffs

@1hhs+1ts9TeuH Somebody watches Gold Rush…

"The big guy always saw through the hype and still does"

"I would argue that the big guy "seeing through the hype" is the primary reason for SAS' decline and its current position in the market."

I have to give JG credit -- he setup a work culture where employees labeled him as an omniscient, all-knowing being who makes all the right decisions. An alternate, and more rational view is "He is a regular guy who found a gold claim, struck a gold seam, and mined that seam for all its worth. He tried working some other claims, but was not as lucky. The gold seam is running out."

@1rlq+1ts9TeuH I’m one of the people that folks always downvote and call a SAS apologist because they can’t handle anyone ot agreeing with every whack job thing said on here.

But I totally agree that this is a great summary of one SAS biggest historical weaknesses that has taken a toll.

@1jhi+1ts9TeuH

Having lived through the entire history of what you describe as an R&D employee, I hear by confer on you the MOST INSIGHTFUL POST award for 2024. You have succinctly summarized why SAS has failed to capitalize on the exponential growth of analytics over the past 20 years.

It seems that once JGH became a billionaire, he established a “limit on the function” of SAS’ innovation and growth by being so ego-invested in the SAS proprietary language and tech stack. The V9 platform evolved as one architectural kludge after another to accommodate this. In the name of fixing this, Viya and CAS furthered the madness.

"The big guy always saw through the hype and still does"

I would argue that the big guy "seeing through the hype" is the primary reason for SAS' decline and its current position in the market.

The mode of operation at SAS has been to downplay every new wave of tech until it becomes foundational in the industry at which point SAS adds lackluster support/integration for that technology.

He downplayed cloud computing until it was too late then SAS built a lackluster "cloud native" product
https://youtu.be/M_0hPwFbwnc?si=gNiLMd14ss1vrzQM&t=1625

He/The company downplayed Hadoop and the rise of Data Lakes until it was too late then built lackluster support for it.

The company is still begrudgingly embracing open source programming languages despite the entire industry converging on SQL and Python as the standard for analytics and data science.

I think the company is repeating the same mistake when it comes to AI. There is no question that the hype is currently outdoing the production of AI, but the great companies are the ones who are innovating and figuring out how to make AI disruptive. Similar to the way Amazon figured out how to make the internet disruptive and Uber figured out how make Apps disruptive.

Here is a good example of a Data + AI company that is ahead of the curve and thinking about how to make AI productive for the Enterprise:

https://youtu.be/UfbyzK488Hk?si=210eXCZuZDiioePo

@kip+1ts9TeuH

Wow, you're right! If the Horizon productions were SAS, they would have released all of them, and then sold them bundled with something. Buy some popcorn, get the movies free. They'd claim loads of people bought tickets when they only bought popcorn.

except the difference is that Kevin Costner or the studio has the sense to realize they made a massive miscalculation and adjust their plans.

if it was really a SAS parallel, they would have rushed out the sequel anyway to much fanfare and PR. filming would have already been completed for the third one, and all the top executives would be spending all their time making plans to rush out the next 6 installments ... never pausing to think about what may have gone wrong with the first one, or correcting things before they rush new ones out.

@nja+1ts9TeuH The parallels are mind boggling!! OMG how could I not have drawn that connection between Viya And Kevin Costner Horizons?

On a different, but related note, has anyone seen the Kevin Costner movie "Horizon"? Apparently it was his dream to make this and a series of sequels. So he did. They released it, and it flopped. According to the news, the next release in the series is delayed because the market isn't interested. The PR machine claims they were originally intended for premium streaming services, and not the big screen. Insert P-e Wee Herman saying "I meant to do that!"...

Let's see...what are the parallels? A grandiose, ego-centric person forces their wares onto a society, and society isn't buying. Where have we smelled this cr-p before? Viya? The 3-letter dude's vanity products? Elsewhere?

@qzr+1ts9TeuH

Brand name and off-brand children.

Common stockholders have "residual" equity in that debt holders and preferred shareholders are ahead in the line. If management is "aligned" in the short term to play games on a quarterly basis, that's more the perversion that leads to overreactions like over-hiring for stupid projects, and then massive layoffs. If management is "aligned" for long term value creation, the theory seems more sound. Create customer value efficiently (including some layoffs but not for a quarterly boost) means the residual equity holders eventually benefit. If there are only two shareholders, is it easier to "smooth" things and do less knee-jerk cost cutting? Probably helpful to avoid the mass layoffs, but as many have said here, that in itself isn't enough to address underlying reasons for a decline in demand for the old goods or ability to produce the right goods for new demand.

“The American people are worried about buying groceries, not toys.”

Speak for yourself not the American people. You don’t represent anyone but yourself. Trying to spin that as “well everyone is doing it” sounds like a politician and is not worthy of serious consideration even if it is true.

I like to buy groceries and toys myself…

@nnh+1ts9TeuH

I believe that comment is in reference to the company that he created.

The American people are worried about buying groceries, not toys.

Acquisitions teams may feel the same worry. Meat, not fat, is what a buyer wants. Who wants to buy a thousand pound cow to get only 50 pounds of meat? Hard sell.

Who is "his baby"?

And to act like layoffs are unnecessary in all cases is ridiculous. Companies get bloated, demand for the product shifts, skills become outdated, etc.